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Product Description

CD Description

This is the first installment in the Pacifica Quartets highly anticipated, four-volume CD survey of the complete Shostakovich string quartets: The Soviet Experience: String Quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich and his Contemporaries. The Soviet Experience is the first Shostakovich quartet cycle to include works by other important composers of the Soviet era, adding variety and perspective to the listening experience. This superbly performed series of audiophile recordings, produced and engineered by multiple Grammy Award winner Judith Sherman, will appeal to everyone interested in great Russian music of the 20th century. Its also a great value: each two-CD installment is priced as a single CD. In 2011-12, the Pacifica will play the Shostakovich quartet cycle in Londons Wigmore Hall.

Review

Dmitri Shostakovich's 15 string quartets are seen as the true inner voice of the man forever harried by the Soviets. The premieres of his 15 symphonies were major political events, but in his chamber music he could afford real personal reflection on life under the comrades. This is the first volume of the Chicago-based Pacifica Quartet's exciting exploration of the cycle, tackling Nos 5 to 8 and coupling them with Nikolai Miaskovsky's quartet No 13. Its release coincides with their electrifying performances at Wigmore Hall last week. Listen to these and you'll wish you had been there. --Observer,16/10/11

Composer's 15 masterworks are notable for their intimacy and represent an emotional journey The quartets in this first volume date from the 1950s and 1960s when, amid a changing political landscape, Shostakovich continued to find himself under external pressure. The Fifth is austere and elusive, the Sixth more lyrical and traditional, the three-movement Seventh alternately spare and dissonant, the Eighth a 20-minute outpouring of emotional intensity in the composer's finest vein. The Pacificas play them with clairvoyant unity of purpose, combining motivic lucidity and naturalness of expression in a way that gives these often difficult masterworks a compelling logic. --Financial Times,18/11/11

How refreshing to encounter the subtly understated performances of the Pacifica Quartet ,which pays Shostakovich the compliment of allowing his music to blossom forth, unmanacled by the need to lace his every whim and caprice with irony. THE STRAD RECOMMENDS --The Strad,Feb'12

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

And here is the place to start. The writers of the liner notes are keen to make sure we are clear about their negative view of the Soviet seven decades. Don't let that put you off. A full and genuine reconsideration of the whole seventy-year experience is about due, and the Pacifica Quartet's account of chamber music that accompanied work of a more public kind (such as Shostakovich's symphonies, obviously) is a terrific place to start. The set should be a worthy rival or companion of any other you might have of the Shostakovich quartets. The one other piece by another major but (for me) less well known composer on each volume makes a worthwhile plus.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)

Amazon.com:
3 reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

The Pacifica Quartet Surveys Shostakovich16 Aug. 2012

By
Grady Harp
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Audio CD

Perhaps it is because there are so many releases of the collection of the String Quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich that his quartets have become a staple in the concert and recital halls around the world. Now the Pacifica Quartet takes on the challenge of finding all the intricacies, the emotional messages, the fiendishly difficult writing and the profoundly moving passages in these works that surveyed much of the composer's career, if not time-wise then state of mind-wise.

In this Volume One of the set the Quartet performs the 5th, 6th, 7thj and 8th quartets. Having heard them in performance encountering their complete immersion in the works is not at all surprising. But what is surprising is how the quartet can engender the sound of a full string orchestra in the BIG section and then reduce the tone to a lullaby quality in the Lentos, Adagios, and Andantes, giving us the impression that we are atone with the four members in a very small, intimate space.As an added element in the Quartet's concept of the releases (`The Soviet Experience') they add the Quartet No. 13 by Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky or Miaskovsky (1881 -1950), a Russian and Soviet composer sometimes referred to as the "Father of the Soviet symphony". The quartet is lush and richly detailed and plays well in company with Shostakovich. This is a first class recording and one that promises great things for the remainder of the series. Grady Harp, August 12

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

Fine playing and fine sound, a winning combination8 Mar. 2013

By
John J. Puccio
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Audio CD

The Pacifica Quartet (Simin Ganatra, violin; Sibbi Bernhardsson, violin; Masumi Per Rostad, viola; Brandon Vamos, cello) play Shostakovich as though born to it. Among the best small ensembles in the country, the Pacifica players perform with enthusiasm, passion, grace, precision, and, above all, virtuosity. If anyone could make Shostakovich come alive for twenty-first century ears, it's these folks.